Sweet and Simple

Happy Monday friends! As we start the count down to the new month, I wanted to share some quick and easy projects that I made with the beautiful March "Sonoma" Scrapbooking Kit!

Occasionally I feel like I need a break from my usual 9x12 layouts and when this happens I like to try my hand at creating on a smaller canvas.  One of the perks of doing this, is that the projects are relatively quick to put together and they quench my craving to create. 

Up first is a 6x8 layout documenting the last day of preschool and the happiness my daughter felt because Kindergarten was right around the corner. I kept the design simple and focused on creating a vertical line with my patterned paper and title. Using the larger floral embellishment gave some impact to the project and the small details created just the right amount of interest. Sweet and simple!

I am highly practiced at admiring other cardmaker's work, yet am often a little lost when it comes to creating my own. Occasionally though, I feel a little brave and give this tiny canvas a shot! The only way I know how to make a card is to pretend I am working on a scrapbook layout and that is how I approached this one:

Wishing you a great day!

Michelle

Sunday Sketch with Emma

Hi all :)  It's Emma here to tackle this weeks Sunday Sketch!

I love sketches as a starting point for any layout but I have to admit this one kind of threw me at first! Here is the sketch I tackled this week:

And here is my take on it!

Because I was a little unsure of those pretty hexagons I've stuck pretty close to the sketch and just adapted it for my smaller sized page (6x8).

 

I really enjoyed the challenge of this sketch, it was a little outside my comfort zone (not used a hexagon before!) but I really like the end result.

Now it's your turn to take on this week's sketch! We love to see what you do with our kits and sketches so please make sure to upload your projects to the Citrus Twist Gallery. And remember, by uploading your take on today's sketch to the gallery by April 4th, you will be entered to win a $5 Coupon to use on anything in the CTK Store! Remember to add "Sketch 29/3" to the title line!

Fun with layers

Happy Wednesday! Today I'll be sharing a very special project encompassing my love of layers and my lack of card making experience.

Jeff and I will be celebrating our fifth anniversary very soon and prior to this project, I had made a grand total of one, teeny single card. I've never had the desire to explore card making but with this special occasion right around the corner, I thought I'd give it a second try.

I really wanted to keep it simple; essentially translate my layout techniques as much as I could onto a smaller surface.

I've seen many cards, lovely ones and I found it extremely hard not having to use a picture of someone or something on my project. It's hard to break a habit but in the end, I went ahead and grabbed one anyways. I thought I'd use it as an opportunity to announce the subject of my card all the while adding a personal touch. Using Photoshop, I added "5 years" directly onto the photo but since the word art was now mostly hiding my picture, I decided I needed to change the opacity of it to achieve something along the lines of a "see through" effect. In order to do this, I chose to "overlay" the layer instead and duplicate it three times.

I grabbed a bunch of paper leftovers from the Main March Scrapbooking kit and grouped them together, stapled the picture and paper lot together and added a few bits here and there. My new favourite thing to do is adding enamel dots to vellum elements (flower, leaves, etc…).

And voila! Tons of loverly layers.

Tuesday Tutorial

I just LOVE the stamp in this months kit!  I wanted to show you a fun way to use the stamp as a background for your layout. 

I just stamped it multiple times to get the faded look before I reinked.

Then I placed my photo several times on the layout till I go enough of the stamping around the picture.

Here is the final layout.  I used the March Main Kit and the new Sprinkles Kit.

Thanks for stopping by!!

Add-On Kit Layouts With Sandy

Hi everyone! I'm sharing my layouts created with the Happiness Is Add-On Kit and My Everyday Life Pattern Paper Kit. I'm blown away by the amount of embellishments Trina packed into the Add-On Kit: there's a 12x12 chipboard sticker sheet, a 27-piece ephemera pack and a set of wood veneers. They come in all manner of shapes and sizes perfect for layering and for creating embellishment clusters. If you love the gold foil trend, like I do, then you'll find many of the  pieces have gold foil applications which allows you to add a sparkle to your pages.

 

 

For more Happiness Is Add-On Kit ideas, check out Michelle Wedertz's gallery. She's also working with this kit and has totally rocked it!

Sketch Sunday with Jessy

Hello again!! It's time for Sunday Sketch again. 

Absolutely love creating with this sketch. I love the white space. 

For this layout, I decided to go with  two colours ; mint green & pink (with pop of gold). I started with the pink background that I created with gelatos. Then I went on with the patterned paper + frame, adhered photos on them & lastly I embellished my layout with all the beautiful embellies that you can find in the March main kit + Sprinkles kit.  Love how it turned out!

Here are some close-ups: 

 Now it's your turn to take on this week's sketch! We love to see what you do with our kits and sketches so please make sure to upload your projects to the Citrus Twist Gallery. And remember, by uploading your take on today's sketch to the gallery by 3/20, you will be entered to win a $5 Coupon to use on anything in the CTK Store! Also add 3/15 to the title line.

Happy crating!

Xoxo Jessy

3 To Inspire with Emma

Hi everyone, Emma here to share a new page for the "3 to Inspire" series! We offer this new challenge every Saturday for those who need a little extra push to get scrapbooking, to keep scrapbooking, or those of you just looking for a challenge!

Your take on this challenge can be in the form of a layout or a PL spread and you'll want to include all 3 elements on your project.

This week, I really wanted to play on the "three" theme, so your inspiration should include:

1. Use 3 photo's 
2. Use 3 patterned papers 
3. Have your title be a 3 letter word

I know that may seem like alot of 3's, but it really is a heap of fun once you start and I had a hard time sticking with just those 3 things of 3! Here's my take on this weeks challenge:

If you look closely you might notice that everything on my layout is actually in groups of 3! Along with the above I've used 3 hearts, 3 enamel dots, 3 frames and I stitched on the layout 3 times (it's a little hard to see, but I've stitched on the top paper, on the title and lastly on the bottom paper)! SO much fun!

And here are the closeups:

Even my title has 3 layers, haha! I'm telling you, once you get started, its hard to stop :)

Now, it's your turn! Play along with our weekly 3 to Inspire challenge and earn a chance to win some happy mail. Each week we will pick one winner and we'll send out an envelope with a little happy mail. To earn a chance to win, participate in this challenge and upload your layout to the Citrus Twist Kits Gallery by Saturday, March 21st and include "Inspire 3/21" as part of your title.

Layouts with Jessy

Hi again! I'm back to share with you 2 layouts that I created with March Main kit + Sprinkles kit. 

I always love to have graphic feel on my layouts. For this layout, I first cut the patterned paper to form a diagonal pattern. Then I adhered 2 frames in the middle and slowly worked my way to embellish around the photo. 

 I also machine stitched the faux washi tapes to create an interest to my layout. 

______________________________________________

My second layout is all about fussy cutting! I absolutely love the Dear Lizzy Serendipity + Crate Paper Craft Market patterned paper. These papers have beautiful flowers on them. I love how the doodle flowers surround the one flower jar with colours. 

 By adding foam dots behind those cut flowers, it will create dimension to your layout. 

Hope you are inspired to pull out your kits to create! Happy crafting!

Xoxo Jessy

Sunday Sketch with our Guest Designer Beshka

Our guest designer is a PL designer but we thought it would be fun to see her use a sketch for her PL page.  So first here is this weeks sketch challenge, and then below you will see what the guest designer had to say and her take.

I love sketch challenges because the hard work is done, the design element. All that is left to do is play with some papers + embellishments. I never shy away from a sketch I like just because it is 12x12, a size that I just don't use. A 12x12 sketch is easy to take to a smaller size by simply scaling down. I created a 6x8 layout for my travel album using this Sunday's 12x12 sketch without a hitch. I started by cutting a piece of cardstock to 6x8 and printing a 3x5 photo. From there I just sized everything to go with my photo + keeping in mind the smaller overall size of my canvas. The 6x6 papers in the March kit were perfect for this and I didn't feel I was wasting a lot of paper. Now I have a fun layout mixed in with all my little pocket pages!

Now it's your turn to take on this week's sketch! We love to see what you do with our kits and sketches so please make sure to upload your projects to the Citrus Twist Gallery. And remember, by uploading your take on today's sketch to the gallery by March 14th, you will be entered to win a $5 Coupon to use on anything in the CTK Store! Also add 3/1 to the title line.

3 to Inspire with Nathalie

Hello, I am back today to share a new edition of our "3 to Inspire" series. We offer this new challenge every Saturday for those who need a little extra push to get scrapbooking, to keep scrapbooking, or those of you just looking for a challenge!

Your take on this challenge can be in the form of a layout or a PL spread and you'll want to include all 3 elements on your project.

Here are your 3 to Inspire:

      1. An adjective as your title

      2. Gold accents

      3. Wood veneers

It happens that gold accents and wood veneers can be found in all our kits this month, the Main kit, the Pocket Life kit and the Add-on kit. The adjective, you have to find on your own ;)

This is my interpretation of the challenge created with the March "Sweet" Main and "Sprinkles" kits: 

And some close-ups:

Now, it's your turn! Play along with our weekly 3 to Inspire challenge and earn a chance to win some happy mail. Each week we will pick one winner and we'll send out an envelope with a little happy mail. To earn a chance to win, participate in this challenge and upload your layout to the Citrus Twist Kits Gallery by Saturday, March 14th and include "Inspire 3/14" as part of your title.

Wishing you a happy and crafty weekend! 

Nathalie

Tuesday Tutorial with our March Guest Designer Beshka

Hello there! Beshka here and I wanted to share with you how my PL spread came together for my fun little guest spot this month (thanks for having me btw!). Whether I am working with kits or going at it with my own set of goodies I always start out the same, with the photos.

If working with a kit I will often spread it out around my space while I am putting pictures in their pockets. Having the kit out while I work on the photos helps me decide what to use. As I put my photos into pockets I can see what will work best with them. Usually by the time I am finished inserting photos, I have decided what elements from the kit I am going to use. I like cohesive pages so it is important to me that what I use with my photos doesn't take away from them. I love all the amazing bits & pieces but I want my photos to tell most of the story.

Once the photos are in place I start adding my filler + journal cards. This go around I couldn't get away from those 6x6 papers and the idea of mixing all those fun patterns to make my own 3x4 cards. I cut several patterns to 3x4 + cut some blank cardstock to 3x4. I then cut my patterned pieces at a diagonal. Once they were all cut I started mixing them up and attaching them to my blank cardstock cards with a bit of adhesive.

Once my cards were all together I added a line of stitching to either side. I trimmed up any wonky cards with my paper trimmer and then added them to my pockets. I move them around a lot until I have the look I want. Once I have all my cards in I began embellishing + adding my journaling.

I don't have a lot of embellishing because I think the patterned cards add quite a bit on their own. My embellishing here includes little bits from the kit + some journaling blocks & strips + two little car cuts using a sheet of the 6x6 paper from the kit. And that is it, that is how my PL spread came together. Easy peasy, especially when you have a kit!

Thanks so much for letting me share and I hope you enjoyed a quick peek at my process.